Last night during a protest by supporters of the VMRO-DPMNE before the State Election Commission, where members were reviewing complaints and objections made by the parties during the elections, on social networks, lists of names and addresses appeared of some of the protesters from the “Colourful Revolution”. Along with the lists, there were calls urging VMRO-DPMNE supporters to “visit” these individuals.
On “Twitter”, a list of addresses of the candidates for MPs from SDSM’s civil society section began circulating. Pavle Bogoevski and Ivana Tufegdzhikj were some of the names on the list, as well as the known activist of the “Colorful Revolution”, Demijan Hadzi-Angelkovski.
Some users of the social network called to have these certain individuals lynched, or to visit the activists and ‘paint their facades’.
Besides the fact that the publication of personal data violates the right to privacy, the calls for lynching is serious hate speech, and is punishable by law.
Section 394-d of the Criminal Code reads:
The spreading of racist and xenophobic material through computer systems.
(1) A person using a computer system to publicly spread racist and xenophobic written material, picture or other representations of an idea or theory that helps, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence against any person or group on the basis of sex, race , colour, gender, belonging to a marginalized group, ethnicity, language, nationality, social background, religion or belief, other beliefs, education, political affiliation, personal or social status, mental or physical disability, age, family or marital status, property status, health condition or any other grounds, by law or ratified international agreement, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to five years.
(2) The sentence from paragraph (1) of this Article shall also be passed to any one who commits the crime through other public media.
(3) A person who commits the acts referred to in paragraphs (1) and (2) of this Article, by abusing his or her position or authority, or if because of these crimes, riots and violence occur against people or if property damage is caused on a large scale, will be punished with imprisonment of one to ten years.
